csv-0.3 released

[Skip Montanaro]

    Chris> This appears to mean that the CSV parser is slower that
    Chris> string.split, and as far as I can tell, does pretty much the same
    Chris> thing. What am I missing?

CSV files can be syntactically more complex than simply inserting commas
between fields.  For example, if a field contains a comma, it must be
quoted:

    1,2,3,"I think, therefore I am",5,6

Also, you can quote fields (as above, but the quotes are not to be kept in
the parsed output.  The above should yield

    ['1', '2', '3', 'I think, therefore I am', '5', '6']

Since fields are quoted using quotation marks, you also need a way to escape
them.  This is usually done by doubling them:

    1,2,3,"""I see,"" said the blind man","as he picked up his hammer and saw"

There are probably more rules, but the comma and quoting rules eliminate
simple string.split as a possibility.  I believe the author was only using
his simple example as a bit of input that could be fed to both string.split
and csv.parser.

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip at pobox.com)
(847)971-7098